Opinion: The development cycle of vulnerability definition, exploit programming and attack deployment is moving at full speed. The prospects for a 2005 full of grief for users and IT are excellent.

In my 2005 predictions column not too long ago I noted that researchers told me that the prospects for new vulnerabilities and attacks in 2005 were rich, in spite of a bumper crop of them in December. Sad to say, it looks like they were right.

The first two weeks of 2005 have been insecure ones on the computing front, and almost no platform remains unsullied. We've seen new vulnerabilities in Linux, Apple's iTunes, SymbianOS cell phones, Gmail and a number of more obscure products. Ironically, we haven't seen much in new holes in Windows, although existing holes have managed to get worse.

What's even worse in a way is the newfound productivity of exploit writers. These are "researchers" who do us all the favor of taking theoretical vulnerabilities, writing code to exploit them, and posting that code where anyone can get at it.